Anyone have an idea as to why, when I try to render a subsurf object, it only renders the bounding box? - by this I mean, there is an object, but the planes are that of the vertices and not the soft rounded object I have created..

Is this a bug, or is there some option I should select like I do with ztransp when I want to make something transparent?

Hi gumpy73, in the edit buttons beneath the subsurf button, there are two number buttons for controlling the number of subdivisions. The second number button is for the renderer, I'm guessing it's at 0?

Yessir... it was at 0. Changed it to reflect interactive subdivisions, and it rendered properly.

-- Thanks

Now I wonder, wouldn't it be more intuitive for the render subdivisions to mirror interactive subdivisions? I understand the purpose (I think) of making it so they could be different (if you wanted to say, test by rendering the composition/placment of objects), but I am not sure which one a user would use most...

**off topic**
Do you know if anyone has ever tried to use a project made in Blender for sculpture? I know that if you translate the grid to mimick a particular scale, you can basically use it to layout anything... I am afraid though, that when applied to another program it might be difficult to measure out in physical form without some heavy-duty adjustment...

The purpose of the two different setting is because when a model becomes big, a subdivision level of 3 will become very slow on most machines. It becomes hard to model. And to model, a subdivision of 1 or 2 mostly suffices. When rendering, I doesn't matter how long it takes and you want the edges to be perfectly round ( in most cases ).

I once made a sculpture from a 3d model, well, a machine did. A 3d printer. I think you mean a clay sculpture. Why would you translate it to another program, though? It's not difficult in other programs to get it to scale.

as far as scupture is concerned, I wasn't referring to clay... I am starting to become obsessed with finding a way to translate these renderings into solid form... I figure I would have to convert a blend file to anther more digestible format (.dxf perhaps) to get it to work properly on a 3d printer say... How did you do it? How did it come out?

I have seen some machines that would do this for me, but the expense seems that it would be enormous...

Almost all of these machines take an stl file as input. stl stands for stereolithography. Models exported in this format need to be solid.

You'll need Hos's very good stl export script for this. If you decide to make a prototype, make sure to tell the service bureau the size of the model, for Blender's coördinate system is quite open for interpretation. A friend of mine also sent his model (which was exported from LightWave, by the way) and his model turned out to be very small.

3d Printer company's also send out free samples on their websites, such as z-corp, 3d systems and stratasys. If you're really interested, you can ask for them. It really shows the detail and the sturdyness of the material. The ABS material is VERY strong, but not very detailed. The waxy materials are very precise, but only for show, not to use. One of the samples I ordered broke last day, when it was picked up. But if it's for a statue, wax could be a good material. Also, the less precise materials as ABS can be sanded to get rid of the layers. In the case of my violin scroll, the layers created a wood pattern! Very cool!

A year or so ago, I read a review of a 3D printer in one of our neat downunder computer mags.

I got to thinking, it might be a viable option to set up a business devoted exclusively to 3D printing. Currently, the low end model is around US$32,000. Now, sure it's not going to pay for itself overnight, but if you've enough liquid assets lying around, eventually it'll be profitable (two to three years, by scratch estimates I pulled out of the air). And it would be soooo cool.

Well just try and keep the subsurf to the absolute minimum render level that looks good in your render. Adding more levels will not significantly improve the outcome but will slow the render way down. !